---
title: norms
description: Norms store various normalization factors that are later used at query time in order to compute the score of a document relatively to a query. Although...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/4572/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/norms
products:
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# norms
Norms store various normalization factors that are later used at query time in order to compute the score of a document relatively to a query.
Although useful for scoring, norms also require quite a lot of disk (typically in the order of one byte per document per field in your index, even for documents that don’t have this specific field). As a consequence, if you don’t need scoring on a specific field, you should disable norms on that field. In particular, this is the case for fields that are used solely for filtering or aggregations.
You can't change the `norms` setting of an existing field. The update mapping API rejects the request.
To turn off norms, set `norms` to `false` when you create the index:
```json

{
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "title": {
        "type": "text",
        "norms": false
      }
    }
  }
}
```

To turn off norms on a field that already has data, use one of these options:
- Update the index template, then [roll over](https://www.elastic.co/docs/api/doc/elasticsearch/operation/operation-indices-rollover) the data stream. Only new backing indices get the change; existing data keeps its norms.
- [Reindex](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/4572/manage-data/data-store/data-streams/modify-data-stream#data-streams-use-reindex-to-change-mappings-settings) into a new index or data stream that has `norms` set to `false`.